Cell-based meats have been discussed in terms of improving sensory factors for consumer acceptance and remedying the environmental problems of conventional livestock production. The improvement accompanies the modification of the production process and the consumption habit regarding cell-based meats. This review analyzed the current status of policies that promote cell-based meats, the related literature, and policy frameworks for the regulation and promotion of cell-based meats in the European Union, Singapore, the United States, Israel, and Japan. Sample selection was based on language, that is, English and Japanese. Further selection was exploratory to analyze the diverse degree of the integration of cell-based meats in policies. The region and countries were selected as leading cases, thereby enabling a policy comparison because they host global corporations that produce cell-based meat. The literature review examined peer-reviewed social science articles from 2013 to early 2022 on policies that promote cell-based meats. The results of the policy surveys revealed that regulations focused on the safety of and measures to display these novel foods by conducting a premarket assessment. These regulations are the basis for developing cell-based meats. Furthermore, some countries and the region being studied justified their support for cell-based meats by implementing action plans for decarbonization and food security. However, unclear communication regarding the nomenclature of cell-based meats is likely to slow down the development of cell-based meats. Moreover, religious beliefs and other cultural perceptions, including animal welfare, leave much room to research such promotion. Similarly, environmental impact assessments of cell-based meats demand further considerations and discussions to accompany evidence-based policymaking for cell-based meats.

Diverse demands for contemporary forest management require greater consideration to cultural ecosystem services. Given the circumstances, understanding how forest elements are perceived can provide valuable information for park managers. Perceptions of visitors have been explored in current studies but research linking these elements with values remains limited. This study revisited perceptions of naturally dead wood compared to cut wood. We reexamined the scholary hypothesis that distinctions between naturally dead and cut wood are comparatively weak for Japanese people and further examined the values attached to any such distinctions. To test the suggested hypothesis, we explored landscape value perceptions of naturally dead and cut wood. In a case study of visitors to Kaisho Forest, Aichi, Japan, we administered a questionnaire that included a photograph evaluation approach. We performed a chi-square test and cluster analysis. The cluster analysis based on associated values from the images identified the naturally dead and obvious cut wood belong to two distinctive clusters. This study further revealed that cluster membership of cut wood depends on the degree of human intervention. Photographs of naturally dead wood and an overgrown humanly induced trunk from coppicing with relatively minor human intervention were associated with natural, spiritual, and aesthetic values. In contrast, fire wood – in the second cluster of cut wood – was associated with educational and productive values. An additional outcome of the chi-square test showed that women tended to assign more therapeutic values to forests and overgrown trunks in the forest than men.

The ratio of organic farming in Japan stagnated in terms of area and involved farmers despite the richness in history symbolized in terms such as the Fukuoka methods or the more recentTeikei. This paper first reviews the historical development of Japan’s organic agriculture from the 1930s (first epoch), regarding Japanese ethnicity and its roots and relationships to nature. Based on this analysis, we critically evaluate policy development from the 1990s (second epoch). Here, we provide potential explanation for the low ratio of organic agriculture in Japan. By combing the conceptual analysis of ethnicity and organic movements, the underpinning factors that underlie the development of organic farming are analyzed both from historical and cultural contexts. Natural farming is a separate individual practice in Japan, with its own philosophical backgrounds. This initial 1930s terminology of “natural farming” or shizen nōhō (自然農法) was translated into yūki nōgyō (有機農業) in the 1970s. This review claims that the meaning of organic agriculture got too narrow to promote organic agriculture with the governmental intervention and standardization from the 1990s. The initial phase of yūki nōgyō also had such a problem as the concept became increasingly institutionalized through government standardization and policy from the 1990s. Currently, at the conceptual level, the linkage to nature, i.e., “shizen,” is confined into “non-use of chemical components” through formal institutionalization, and the ethnic elements or philosophical and historical roots are neglected. Similar phenomena of “commodification of organic farming” are widely known in matured markets in the USA and Europe, but the discrepancy of “nature” and “organic” agriculture is particularly also observed in contemporary Japan.